                  APOD: 2018 March 17 - The Crab from Space

                         Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! [1] Each day a different image or photograph of our
 fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a
                           professional astronomer.

                                2018 March 17
                                      [2]
                             The Crab from Space
   Image Credit: NASA [3]  - X-ray: CXC [4] , Optical: STSCI [5] , Infrared:
                              JPL-Caltech [6] ,

Explanation: The Crab Nebula is cataloged as M1, the first object on Charles
Messier's [7]  famous list of things which are not comets. In fact, the Crab
[8]  is now known to be a supernova remnant [9] , expanding debris from the
death explosion of a massive star. This intriguing [10]  false-color image
combines data from space-based observatories, Chandra [11] , Hubble [12] , and
Spitzer [13] , to explore the debris cloud in X-rays (blue-white), optical
(purple), and infrared (pink) light. One of the most exotic objects known to
modern astronomers, the Crab Pulsar [14] , a neutron star spinning 30 times a
second, is the bright spot near picture center. Like a cosmic dynamo [15] ,
this collapsed remnant of the stellar core powers the Crab's emission across
the electromagnetic spectrum. Spanning about 12 light-years, the Crab Nebula
is 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Taurus [16] .

                   Tomorrow's picture: around the moon [17]

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    Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff [29] (MTU [30] ) & Jerry Bonnell [31]
                                  (UMCP [32] )
          NASA Official:  Phillip Newman Specific rights apply [33] .
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              A service of: ASD [35]  at NASA [36]  / GSFC [37]
                           & Michigan Tech. U. [38]
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Site notes:
  [1] archivepix.html
  [2] image/1803/crab_lg.jpg
  [3] http://www.nasa.gov/home/index.html
  [4] http://chandra.harvard.edu/
  [5] http://www.stsci.edu
  [6] http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/
  [7] http://www.seds.org/messier/xtra/history/biograph.html
  [8] http://www.seds.org/messier/more/m001_rosse.html
  [9] http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l2/
supernova_remnants.html
  [10] http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2018/crab/
  [11] http://chandra.harvard.edu/
  [12] http://hubblesite.org/
  [13] http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu
  [14] ap050326.html
  [15] ap990929.html
  [16] http://www.allthesky.com/constellations/taurus/
  [17] ap180318.html
  [18] ap180316.html
  [19] archivepix.html
  [20] lib/apsubmit2015.html
  [21] lib/aptree.html
  [22] https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/apod/apod_search
  [23] calendar/allyears.html
  [24] /apod.rss
  [25] lib/edlinks.html
  [26] lib/about_apod.html
  [27] http://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=180317
  [28] ap180318.html
  [29] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/faculty/Nemiroff.html
  [30] http://www.phy.mtu.edu/
  [31] https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/jbonnell/www/bonnell.html
  [32] http://www.astro.umd.edu/
  [33] lib/about_apod.html#srapply
  [34] https://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/HP_Privacy.html
  [35] https://astrophysics.gsfc.nasa.gov/
  [36] https://www.nasa.gov/
  [37] https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/
  [38] http://www.mtu.edu/
